This video that Hayden and I made a few months is linked in a new Wired article about the game!

Here's the essay.

I knew John less than ten years. Never once in that time did I greet him as Dr. Vogel, although I did introduce him to others in this manner. Even in these moments, I felt strange using this common formality.

That’s because John never introduced himself as anything other than John, and if you never stepped into his overstuffed office, full of medical journals, books, awards and diplomas, you might think he was a photographer, a collector of Japanese art, perhaps a musician.

To me, John existed only in retirement, yet he managed an exhausting schedule, taking once-in-a-lifetime trips two or three times every year. The days in between his more epic journeys he crammed with opera, food, friends, and even some work. I suppose it’s hard to retire when the world doesn’t want you to. Dr. Vogel kept up on research, edited journal articles and attended conferences long after hanging up his lab coat.

One time several years ago, while I was working at a scientific convention in Seattle, I ran into John. He was cruising down a hall at the convention center, a satchel of papers lassoed to one shoulder and his camera bag strapped from the other, marking a giant X on his chest. I closed my cellphone and approached him, a smile creeping across my face. I knew the facility was being shared by my event and another medical conference, but I never believed I would see John in the thousands and thousands of faces.

He shook my hand and unfolded his abstract booklet.

“Well, David, it seems I’ve wandered off of the right path. Perhaps you know where this room is?” He asked, completely comfortable with requesting my assistance.
“Let me take a look,” I answered, taking his map and holding it over my complete map of the facility.

I walked with him to his session, where he was ushered in by a colleague, maybe even one of you here today. I still remember the many ribbons adorning John’s badge. He was no mere exhibit hall looky-loo, as we used to call the less scientific attendees of our conference. Dr. Vogel was the real deal.

I imagine that some of you here know more about Dr. Vogel than I, and I don’t have the authority or time to attempt to tell you what he was like on the job, or list his many accolades, his numerous contributions. However, I believe it is safe to say that Dr. Vogel was, at the very least, an inspiring doctor and colleague.

I like to think that I am not easily charmed. I may smile, shake your hand, but I tend to mistrust anyone new to my world. Not so with John. In my defense, it is simply not possible to reject his charm. He was instantly warm to me, inquiring about my interests and never mentioning his own. I knew he was an accomplished doctor and teacher, but he seemed truly impressed with my utterly basic understanding of computers, something he, too, tinkered with. It was some time later that he showed me a data interface he wrote in order to evaluate a long-term research project. Suddenly, my printer installing skills seemed slightly less impressive.

Over the years, as I got to know John better, my jaw repeatedly hit the floor when he’d share with me some other achievement—his manner so off-hand, so humble. I’m not like John; I’d have my CV tattooed on my chest if it were near as glamorous as his. That’s what separates men like John from others. Not the astonishing accomplishments, nor the certificates that adorn a wall. John’s fundamental core was beautiful. He emanated all that is good about humanity. Our shared curiosity, a belief that we need to take care of each other, the necessity that all men and women be treated equally, fairly. Life was precious to John, and he carried this belief with him both professionally and personally.

He was quite conservative when I met him, but he never squashed my progressive ideas. If anything, John himself was politically overrun once he married into Jeanne’s liberal family. Jeanne, of course, is a passionate Democrat, so I’m fairly certain John, being a good scientist, hypothesized that entering a political debate with her would introduce too many variables. As we joked recently, John’s vote for Obama was probably less a vote for change as it was a vote for peace and quiet.

Having no biological children, John quipped that he skipped the hard part. In his role as Opa to Lucas, Aidan, Hayden and Morgan, John doted. He loved his grandchildren, and they absolutely adored him. I remember not long before John entered the hospital for the last time, he stubbornly hoisted himself out of bed and slowly made his way down the hallway just so he could wave goodbye to my son, Hayden.

In the course of my studies in literature, I’ve come across many American archetypes. Characters that truly embody one or more of the basic tenets of our society. As I mentioned earlier, Doctor John Vogel is the real deal, a true American archetype. Self-made, independent, loyal, generous, up to any challenge, a hint of joyful innocence always twinkling in his knowing blue eyes.

Although we spoke often of politics and life at the University of California, we only on occasion discussed literature. Knowing what I do about John and his many passions, I believe he might have been a fan of another American archetype, Ralph Waldo Emerson. In memory of John, I’d like to close with a passage from Emerson’s Nature that reminds me of him.

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food.

Today, I opened the file, crept back into the book, and I'm feeling rather uneasy.

I want to rewrite everything, strip off the paper and paint the walls, pull out the plumbing, lay down a new floor. In this scenario, I feel like I need to summon all the laziness I possess and just let things go. The goal was not to write anything brilliant or even extraordinary; it was simply and only to do it, to lay down the idea and let it be.

I'm at a point with this particular story where I want to pack it up and ship it off, but I can't bring myself to do that just yet, not without a more polished product, a stamp of approval from my inner critic.

I'll do my best to do my worst. It needs to be done.

I think the editing process as a whole will go by much faster than writing the book. What I want to avoid is impatience. After more than a year of work, now is not the time to take shortcuts.

Here's a sample from the chapter I'm working on right now. In it, the main character, Charlie, has let himself go, let himself and the people around him down and completely isolated himself. He has just learned that his estranged ten year-old son has come to visit him unexpectedly.

I suppose you could make your own metaphors for those singular moments when you are “discovered,” when you are absolutely and undeniably revealed to both the audience of your life and to yourself. Maybe the police come to your door with a warrant for your arrest, or your best friend reveals some heinous betrayal, or you witness an act so vile, your faith instantly vaporizes back into the gas you knew it always was. No amount of composure can buffer against the catastrophic change as you instantly deflate and weakly attempt to re-pressurize for the coming wind. If such a blow comes with enough vigor, it will smash you with a new gaping mouth, darken those two duplicitous eyes, and crush your once tolerable posture. From your corporeal wreckage, you may even recognize the possibility that you will never fully reset these physical features, never again hide from who you are, what you’ve become, and what you’ll never regain.

He face is a swirling drape of skin all sloping down to a drain that has replaced her mouth. It lies open always, a puttering vacuum that shakes with each attempt at suction. I could hear the morphine in her body, that thick low breath that comes with the stupor. I've heard it before, and I expect I'll hear it again. As I neared the side of her bed, I picked up the sound of her mucus, bouncing around in her chest like globby pinballs.

Inout..............Inout..............Inout................

That's the best I can do to visually describe to you this style of breathing, if you haven't had the opportunity to hear it in the past.

The staff at the home that cares for her had called my mother yesterday at lunchtime.

"Come now," they said. "Just come right now."

My mother went right over. I showed up a few hours later, driving from near Sacramento to near San Francisco to get there. We were it. She's two weeks from 102, after all. There aren't many people left who know who she is.

I spent the night at my mother's house. We had seven and sevens, talked about Grandma, joked about how tough she is, what a fighter she'd always been, how she'd probably be sitting up waiting for breakfast in the morning.

She wasn't.

Inout..............Inout..............Inout................

She can't be more than 80 pounds now, her skin just a hair thinner than the muscles that it covers. She has a thin brown pony-tail tied on the top of her head even though the wild eruptions of hair on her temples are as gray as ash. I can see more than just a vein or two behind the skin on her face.

She has achieved translucence.

After an early morning visit, breakfast in Burlingame, and another visit, my mother and I part ways in the parking lot to return to our respective jobs, the nurses ready to call should anything change in her condition. That was 9:30 AM. It's 8:30 PM and no such call has come.

She's still there, still here, still breathing. Amazing.

I was standing a moment ago in front of the kitchen window, looking out on our street, watching some leaves tumble by. I imagine her standing in front of the kitchen windows of her own long, varied life. So many people she's known, so many friends and family and lovers. She's outlived them all, watched the world go by, come back around the bend and go by again and again. Almost 102, after all.

I thought about pouring myself a seven and seven tonight, stirring the cocktail with my finger and lifting it in honor of her. But I couldn't seem to move, couldn't take my eyes off of the empty street in front of my house. Hayden's asleep. Heidi's out for a little while. It was just me in the quiet, watching out of the window, my body almost frozen, trying to freeze.

A dog barked faintly in the distance. A siren traversed nearby Gibson Road. The wind stopped troubling the leaves. I checked my jeans to make sure my phone was with me. I didn't cry. Maybe I will in a little while.

Is that just the world moving by, Grandma?

I'm up to 88,000 words, which is 8,000 more than my minimum. Even though I don't want this to be a long book, I'm okay with going so wildly past my minimum. I'm certain there's a lot to be cut during the editing phase.

Here's a scene from Chapter 17. In it, Charlie recalls a conversation that happened in his adolescent bedroom between him and his friend. In it, he describes a vision he had to his friend. Of course, the entire episode is actually a vision of a memory of a vision. Right, and so...

I lay on my old bed, watching Jeff flip through my meager collection of cassette tapes, many of them purchased on his recommendations.

“Where’s that Slayer tape? The one Barney lent me? I’m sure I left it here.”

“Dunno. Check the deck.”

He opened the player and pulled out the transparent plastic cassette.

“Aha!” He rejoiced. “Now, where’s the fuckin’ case?”

“It’s not on top of the deck?”

“Don’t see it.”

“Hmm…” I rolled off of my bed and started pawing around under my bed. I pulled out a sock.

“Oh, man,” he said. “That’s disgusting.”

“It’s just a sock.”

“Uh-huh.”

I reached under the bed again and pulled out the tape cover.

“Here!” I proudly announced.

“Cool. Give it over.”

I handed him the cover, and he opened it up, pulling out the liner notes and examining the microscopic print.

“Jeff?”

“Yeah, buddy.”

“Can I tell you about one?”

“Sure.”

“You were smoking a joint.”

“That was ten minutes ago, Charlie. You’re slipping.”

“No. We’re a lot older. You’re smoking a joint at my work, I think. But it’s just us, and we’re in the showroom.”

“So far, I’m failing to see the excitement.”

“You’re you, right at this moment. Same age, clothes, hair. But I’m not. I’m older, stronger, and I think my skin is different.”

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.”

“I’m looking at you, but you’re not really there.”

“Although you confuse me every day, Charlie, I always seem ask what the hell you mean.”

“I’m older, but you’re not. You’re smoking and I’m not. We’re at my work, but I’m pretty sure I’m not on the clock. And we’re just sitting there, not talking or moving or anything. But I can’t stop watching you, even though everything seems strange. It’s like you’re not really there, and neither am I.”

“Technically, neither of us is there.”

“I guess,” I acknowledge, playing with the frayed denim on my jeans.

He stopped examining the tape cover and pivoted his body so he faced me.

“We’re not really here, either,” he whispered. “If I die tonight, I’ll leave no evidence of my life. So it’s like I was never here, right?”

“Huh?”

“Think about it, Chuck. We’ve left no mark, probably never will. Not because I don’t want to, it’s just the reality of life.”

“You’ll leave a mark.”

“Maybe, maybe not. My point is that I haven’t, so technically, I’m not really here.”

“Uh. Okay.”

“See what has been and what the future sees,” he hissed, menacingly, and then burst into laughter.

“What does that mean?”

“The poetry of Slayer is a multi-layered beast, Charlie. To explain deeper meanings requires more cheeba.”

I collected my pipe and baggie from the nightstand and handed them to Jeff. He unscrewed the lid from the bowl and poked around in the ash.

“Another hit, maybe two,” he surveyed.

He fished Thorn from his pocket, rolled the striking wheel and held the flame carefully next to the bowl so that just the tip of the fire would be dragged over the lip and around the remaining nugget. The dark ball glowed orange as he inhaled.

He handed me the pipe, nodding for me to take my hit before the bowl died.

“Hurry,” he muttered through clenched lips.

I held the pipe to my lips but did not smoke. My mind fixed on the smoldering embers, and the room seemed to fill immediately with amber, trapping us in the resin. I could look around the room but no longer move. Jeff’s eyes darted around, yet he, too, remained completely still. We were glued into position, frozen for all eternity in this meaningless moment.

I shouted at him with my mind, yelled out my desire to break free, to move and never stop, but I could not say if Jeff heard me. His eyes stopped moving and seemed to relax, as if he’d resigned himself to this new, unfathomable fate.

My main concern is describing their effect on humanity rather than a simple reactions. Yet I want to do this without going into a history lesson approach. I have to be sneaky.

Here's a bit I worked on over the weekend. It occurs after Charlie has revealed his latest "discovery" to his partner, Peter, and the two have begun working together again after a long, strained period.

Six days after showing Peter my new creatures, I returned home to Claire, wild-eyed and beastly in my own right. During my absence, I acquired the appearance of a madman. I can only imagine those on the highway who saw me in my 1973 Trans Am, t-tops open, the wind blowing my beard and hair swirling around me like a furry turban, barely covering the grimace on my face.

After a week of working with Peter in the lab, I could no longer stand his constant pleas for me to take a stand with my family, either in it or out of it. That afternoon, I threw my lab coat at him and told him to shut the hell up, that I would go see them.

I let myself into the house, unaware that others no longer considered me a resident, and wandered up to the room Claire and I shared. No one appeared in my path, so I was able to turn on the shower without alerting the staff or Claire. I realized on my drive to the house that I needed to clean up prior to presenting myself to her.

I showered quickly and dried off. My hair clung to my face like a squid. I wrapped the towel around my waist and made my way to the enormous walk-in closet we shared. In it, I found only Claire’s clothes.

“Crap,” I said to myself.

“What are you doing here?” Claire asked, appearing behind me, arms crossed, looking slightly afraid of me.

“I came home to see my family. I just wanted to clean up first. Any chance you still have my clothes somewhere?”

“They’re boxed up in the garage. Feel free to take them on your way out.”

“Come on, Claire. Give me a chance to explain myself.”

“What are you going to explain, Charlie? What could you possibly say that would absolve you of months of absence, of ignored invitations, of un-returned phone calls? What could you say?”

“I planned to begin with an apology.”

“Please leave,” she angrily requested, hot tears steaming from her eyes.

“I know I’m bad at this, and I know that I’ve been too obsessed with work, lately. Maybe I can take some time away, now. The project’s at the lab, so I don’t need to work alone anymore. I can…”

“Jesus, Charlie. You think it’s the work? Really?”

I didn’t.

“You’re right, Claire. I just grabbed onto it because it was close.”

She softened at my admission, but remained guarded, pissed.

“You can see him, but then I want you to go.”

“Fair enough. Would you have Thomas bring up a box of clothes for me? I know he’s here.”

“Okay,” she agreed. Before turning to go, she looked me over. During my stay at the garage, I’d lost a considerable amount of weight, mostly muscle. “You look like a damn castaway, Charlie.”

She left me alone in the closet, wet, spindly and surrounded by enough women’s clothing to fill an entire store.

I put together a quick WordPress site and began writing a tutorial on creating an accessible sorting list that also uses JQuery. I had to cut it into three parts, as there's just too much to explain if I want this to follow the mantra of the site.

Check it out, if you're into code porn.

http://functionalfusion.com